Should we change our view on dating?

[DiscoChick]

He sounds like an interesting guy to me. Is he Christian? If I lived near him, I'd try it.

[Zeegagge]

The Farmer's Market, that is a good idea for a date. We could come home and make ourselves a nice meal afterwards. I'm adding that to my arsenal.

[Zeegagge]

Ok, that was mean Tinkerbell, sorry, they're just hazing you a little bit. Anyhow, I do have an opinion on this. The problem with your theory is that it seems like you would have a guard up the whole time. You would never have a truly successful relationship or know the joy of being romantically connected with someone when you had such a guard up.

[paddington bear]

Firstly you cannot protect yourself from getting hurt. If you go into a relationship assuming that it's going to end and that you will get hurt, won't in fact, stop you from getting hurt in the end.

 

My advice would be to stop over-thinking. For example, the farmers market guy, say you did have a profile up, say this guy did contact you, I would say just go on a date and guage him or anyone else in person and let that guide you. If you then on meeting in person decided that you did like him, there are never, ever any guarantees that any relationship will last, so you've got to leap in and 'love like you've never been hurt' and take a chance.

 

I'm much older than you, and I've found that you simply cannot avoid being rejected or feeling hurt when a relationship ends. I've also found out that avoiding being hurt actually prevents you from getting into relationships in the first place and you end up even more alone.

 

Stop focusing on inevitable heart-break and see each new guy you meet as an adventure and as fun, as soon as it stops being fun, or you have a bad gut feeling, or something feels wrong or you feel hurt within the relationship, get out, otherwise just enjoy each day with a guy as it comes and don't focus on the fact that it might end some day - if you do that, you ruin for yourself your time with him in the here and now, so not only do you not fully enjoy the relationship when you're in it, you also will probably contribute to its ending by holding back.

[D-Jam]

I think everyone needs to sheathe their claws and look at things from a 3rd party perspective.

 

I don't see her desires or wantings as unrealistic. She sounds like any 22 year old girl I've met in my life. The problem is that many who get irked I believe are more seeing her as the woman who rejected them. Thus they paint the picture in their minds that she's the one who rejected them because they were not "hot and bad" enough, and so they get spiteful.

 

Frankly, her words say she's not in the mood for anything serious. She wants to date around, have some flings, enjoy life, and then look for the solid RL later.

 

So Tinker Bell's asking how not to get hurt. Here's my advice:

 

1. Value yourself. This is not saying you should become some stuck-up brat who thinks she's the top echelon of woman, but she should be ready to walk away from a situation she doesn't favor. So Mr Fun-for-now starts getting drunk and calling her names, she should use that as a moment to call it quits and move on. Not stick around and hope he'll become better.
   
2. Protect yourself. I mostly mean this in terms of sexual. Don't let a guy do anything sexual with you unless he's wearing a condom. You should bring them even just so you know they're fresh and durable. Bear in mind these "hot and exciting" guys are pursued by many women, so they get around if you know what I mean. You don't want to wake up with an STD he never tells women about, or worse wake up pregnant and thus ruin your life in the fight to get him to at least help out.
   
3. Shield yourself. Biggest mistake most women make when deciding to keep things at "not serious" when it comes to men is that they don't follow their own guidelines. So they meet some guy who's hot, exciting, and amazing in bed. She's caught his fancy and thus they're dating, partying, and having loads of wild sex. Suddenly, she's falling for him...but knows he's anti-commitment and thus wants nothing more than fun and sex. She'll try very hard or do things to see if she can change his mind, but end up hurt when she sees he's willing to walk away and look for a new piece of tail than go the way she wanted him to.
    
   If you're going to do "fun time" then leave emotion out of the equation. Most women I've seen who engage in flings or FBs with a guy will usually fall for him, and thus is on the quest to change him into a RL mentality.
   

Other than that, I'd also tell you not to leave relationships and commitment out of the equation. That means you just might meet that amazing guy who is a truly good guy and you two click on every level...don't toss him away because you want to be single and live it up for a while. What happens if you hit your later 20s and now want this guy, but he's taken? What happens if you look and look and hit your early 30s with the only options being more guys who just want sex, "eh" and ugly guys who want commitment, but all the handsome good committing guys are all taken up?

 

So enjoy your quest for fun. Just be adult about it.

[Mr White]

Bascally you're saying that you'll linger in limbo until you hit 30, and then you'll freak out that you still haven't found a meaningful relationship, which will not be easy since you haven't tried to establish it all along. That's my prognosis.